Wednesday, October 29, 2014

We were fortunate to hire two workers from our local temple,
one of whom I was already friends with (Samlot).
With the endorsement of our head monk Lungpaw
Boon Long, Lot
and Naht were tasked to do us good and quality work; with this stated
expectation from Boon
Long and other monks to Lot
and Naht, thereby assuring that Thip
and I would not have the same kind of problems we’ve had on all our previous
construction projects:

bathroom:
actually, a pretty good job, although I had to take over some of the caulking;

village
home ground floor roof: now beginning to sag on one side, because they
didn’t cement the concrete posts into the ground, roof is damaged from workers
walking on it between the rafters, and not enough screws to hold it down;

overall with all the work we’ve had done, it’s the trim work,
painting and staining that are most often the most poorly done portion of the work.

To say that I’ve been disappointed with the quality of most
all the work we’ve had done for us over the past 2.5 years would be an understatement.
It’s not that Isaan workers can’t do a good job. It’s just that they don’t
care.

A perfect example is Thip’s brother Sawt. Since he’s a high
voltage lineman (in addition to being a seasonal rice farmer), we hired him and
his crew to extend the power lines from the public road down to our pad. The
work took shape in two phases. When it was all done, one of the cement posts
was considerably at an angle (not perpendicular); there was no cut-off switch
for the street light installed on the pad; and the street light itself was loose.
When I offered to pay Sawt some more to fix these things that I had already
paid him to do, his response was something like: ‘it’s good enough as it is.”

Thursday, October 23, 2014

As I previously
mentioned, the initial plan was to just take down “Love Shack II”
and put it back up again on the new
pad once the pad had solidified. When the love shack wood was inadvertently
burned by one of our neighbor’s sons while clearing his own rice paddies (the fire jumped paddies), we
received the father’s shack as settlement (Tah Mai – now Lungtah Mai – had
since gone into the monkhood). Then, the plan became: take down and reconstruct
Lungtah Mai’s shack (a shack with walls) on the pad.

{Looking from the north, at the bend in our road, as it goes to the pad)

This second plan didn’t last long, as various pressures were
put on me to expand the scope of the project still further. For my part, I
realized I’m not getting any younger and that if my
wife and I are going to enjoy it out there – as our head monk assured us we
would – I might as well act sooner than later to put in a structure we can live
in year’round and that fits our lifestyle. Consider it a kind of “country
home,” not quite a “vacation home.”

(At the turn in our dirt road [same spot as previous picture was taken from], looking westwards toward the main road and temple. You can even see Lungtah Mai's shack/bungalow with red roof off to the left)

Monday, October 13, 2014

There is actually somewhat of a history surrounding
structures on our larger rice farm.

(on the pad for "Ban Nah," July 2014; my wife Thiphawan and motosai in last frame)

What I call “Love Shack
I” went in right after we bought the land in 2003. Thip’s father Nah – Khun
Paw – and a good friend of the family, Pahwet, built it. They situated it
near the uppermost part of the upper land (as opposed to the lower land, where
the rice paddies are). It was a long stone’s throw from the road and just
across from our temple.

It was a typical Thai
farm shack, meant to provide a resting place for family, friends and
workers when farming or hanging out. You see them all over the rice fields of Southeast Asia; little
more than just shacks, in most cases.

Not long afterwards, Thip’s brother Sawt had built a small
one-room cement and tile roof bungalow with a separate restroom next to it.
Both structures were close to the shack. Sawt likes to stay out on the farms,
outside the village, enjoying the benefits of privacy. Yet, as far as I can
tell, very little living was spent in the bungalow that ened-up as mostly just
a storage unit. I know, because I once cleaned it out, thinking that I could
convert it into a personal writer’s
retreat.

Instead, Sawt and his wife Nui took over occupancy of the
structure on our smaller rice farm (8.5 rai), which we purchased several years
after we bought the first farm. So, Love
Shack I and Sawt’s bungalow both ended-up used pretty much only during the
rice growing season.

A little less than ten years later, when I retired in the
village and we decided to donate some of 17 Rai to our temple for the building
of a chedi,
I had “Love
Shack II” constructed toward the bottom of the upper land, just inside our
new boundary lines.

Family complained that there were no walls. There had been
two in the first shack, providing a corner of privacy and shelter from wind
blown rain. I figured that if they had a problem with wind blown rain, they
could use tarps. I didn’t count on Sawt being drunk one night, getting up to go
pee and stepping off the platform and dropping several feet to the ground.
Nothing was broken, but of course I was blamed. Actually, I had Love Shack II
constructed without walls on purpose because I had found evidence of sexual
activity from visitors in the first shack. That’s actually why I began calling
the shacks “love.” I did not want to continue to provide a place for
clandestine rendezvous. It was bad for my karma.

Friday, October 10, 2014

In July 2014, after tam nah was
completed on both of our rice farms, and Khaopensa (“Buddhist Lent” –
3 months long) had begun, we set about to construct our bann nah (farm
house). It was initially intended to be just an open air bungalow to protect
ourselves, family and workers from sun and inclement weather; a successor, if
you will, to “Love Shack I” and “Love Shack II.”
Who knows? Maybe I could finally get my writer’s retreat…

My thinking had been: Well, we’ll just erect another shack a
little bit better than the last one, then – much later – build a small house
for Thip and I, that family could partially share.

But, succumbing to the pressure, working out the budget for
it, realizing that labor and materials would never be cheaper, and knowing that
I’d really like it out there if I could get a building that fit my lifestyle
(as opposed to, say, the family’s), I shifted course and agreed with Thip to
build a one-room, one-porch elevated farm house on the former 17 Rai, now down to 9.

Monday, October 6, 2014

While Thip
and I don’t get out there for the hard work in the rice paddies (exposure to
the sun and repetitious bending), we contribute in other ways the family
cannot; namely by providing the land and financial assistance for things like
fertilizer, pumps, electricity, buildings to shade workers, machinery, repairs,
threshing, food, beer. We don’t pay for it all, but ours is by far the largest
monetary contribution to the family enterprise.

The only thing that we don’t pay for is hired help. Thip’s
brother Sawt, who organizes the seasonal planting and harvesting, sometimes
hires non-family members and friends to help out at peak periods. If that’s how
he wants to manage it, “up to him” is how we put it here in the Land of Smiles
(LoS).

As far as I am concerned, there are enough able bodied
family members, who get a portion of the crop, to help bring it in; some
of these are conspicuous only in their
absence.

Sadly, these are mostly the younger members of the family
who are in far better physical condition than those of us who are older. This
problem of “missing youth” on farms is not limited to our family alone, but is
– I believe – a nation-wide issue that has occurred in other countries, too.
When thinking about the ramifications of this for Thailand’s future as a major rice
exporter, however, it’s hard to see small family farms lasting very long.

("What, you sayin' I don't work around here, dude?")

(Front gate area of our home in the village; boots are necessary even on dry days if you're in fields highly overgrown; it's all about the possibility of coming across a snake or two...)

Here’s a video showing how we pump water from the family
farm, next door, to irrigate the rice paddies on our 8.5 rai farm. Cameo’s by
Thip’s father Nah and some other family members towards the end:

Friday, October 3, 2014

Not long after returning from my seventh
trip to Lao, it was the time of tam nah – rice transplanting.

Our Thai family (Thai-Lao,
really) has been planting, growing and harvesting khao nio (sticky
rice) and jasmine rice on our two farms ever since we bought them circa 2002.
In fact, that’s the reason we bought the land. Both were purchased pretty
cheaply from owners who were in a rush to pay off loans before default and
losing everything altogether.

The sellers’ misfortune became our family’s fortune, as it
immediately turned our family from share croppers to virtual owners. Thip and I
have been happy about the way it’s turned out; pretty much how we wanted it: to
have our Thai-Lao
family (approximately 12-15 family members) self-sufficient in rice.

After the paddies are tilled and prepared for planting, one
or two paddies are designated as nursery beds and thickly sown with rice. This
is what I referred to just before I left for my 7th trip to Lao.

After about a month, the rice seedlings are ready for
transplanting to the main paddies. I’ve previously shot some video showing this,
at our larger farm, in 2009:

I’m not much for this kind of back-breaking work; not only
due to my age (65), but because I literally broke my back about ten years ago.
I get out into the rice paddies to show my support and do a little work, but
it’s mostly symbolic. My contribution mostly comes from making the land
available and paying for stuff that’s needed.